Posted on 03/22/2002 11:41:11 PM PST by kattracks
All you have here are yet more medical personnel and FBI stakeout specialists spouting off nonsense about how the post office works in New Jersey. Frankly, if you want to get your mail handled correctly, you would talk to a postmaster and not to an FBI agent. It is the same here. The FBI is totally out of its water in this and the USPS is not speaking publicly.
The stuff was all mailed in Florida; most likely on September 8 or 9.
It ended up being erroneously transported to Philadelphia Bulk Mail Center where it was then once again transported to the Hamilton Twp. facility or to a commercial mailer in the area.
These letters did not come into the Hamilton Twp facility through normal letter mail collection operations.
In fact, except for the phoney-baloney return addresses on the pieces, none of this has any thing to do with New Jersey. 100% of the evidence concerning the movement of this mail points to Boca Raton as the point of origin.
Do you recall who this was?
Probably was Hani Hanjour.
He had been in the USA on and off since 1990.
The only one of the 19 who was a long time 'sleeper'.
According to the USPS, the Philadelphia Bulk Mail Center tested negative for anthrax on 11/7/2001. Why would the envelopes have shed anthrax spores in Boca Raton and Hamilton, but not in Philadelphia, if that's really the route that they took?
Thanks.
Down in Boca Raton they had been dropped in collection boxes in a wealthy neighborhood. Ordinarily these boxes receive little or no mail, but they are watched closely by retired coupon clippers who are always ready, willing and able to file a complaint.
Atta, et al, dropped the envelopes into such boxes. At that point in the cycle the tape on the envelopes was still working and the anthrax had not yet penetrated the paper. Odds are no contamination whatsoever was left behind on the collection boxes, whether on the lid, or inside. In any case, all of these collection boxes have a flat tray on the inside. Whatever mail is dropped in is collected in the flat tray. One letter drops in - it goes in the tray.
When the boxes are pulled for collection, the normal course is to pull the tray out, look to see if any mail fell behind the tray, and then put the tray into the collection vehicle. A new but empty tray is then placed into the collection box which is then closed and locked.
At the end of the route all the trays full of mail are set on the carrier apron or on the acceptance and/or dispatch platform. Given that the area where these envelopes were placed was repleat with watching wealthy and elderly people, the collection employees have learned very well how to avoid complaints and criticism.
Accordingly he or she stacked up all the trays collected and placed them on the platform together. Unfortunately (but, as usual) the trays were mistaken for empty equipment. Typically the collection boxes would be only lightly used anyway if this happened on a Saturday afternoon, that is September 8, 2001.
Saturday evening operations are light, and the next step for these apparantly empty trays was for them to be placed on a pallet with a number of others, get shrink wrapped, and then dispatched NORTH to a BMC or other facility which would then route them to MPCs and AOs for use.
These trays could also be routed directly to Jacksonville or Greensboro BMCs for delivery on to a major mailer, or redirect to yet another BMC. As I recall South Florida empty equipment is frequently returned directly to Philadelphia BMC (in short, on a return trip on vans pulled by tractors already contracted to make the Philadelphia to S. Florida standard mail runs.) (It can be much more complex than this, of course.)
Remember that under this scenario these envelopes are snug and secure in the bottom of flat trays with yet another flat tray inserted as a plug. They are further encased in shrink wrap. The anthrax spores have not yet penetrated the paper (although that will certainly happen within 2 weeks - we know that because it did!).
Wherever these trays go, the mailer or other user will begin working them down from the top. Since these letters were postmarked in 010, we must presume that the USPS employee or mailer employee who grabs the tray to use it sees the letter, recognizes that it is a piece of FCM and tosses it over to a tray being routed to a preferential mail operation. Remember, too, flat trays are for flats and letter trays are for letters. A letter in a flat tray is a mistake. This time the mistake was corrected.
The large commercial mailer that could have been the destination point for these letters was one of 8 in the Trenton area. Someone should check them all out for signs of anthrax contamination. Or, maybe the trays were put into service right there in Trenton. We know where the contamination is there. Did they check the trays? Probably not! That's how the folks in NY and CT got infected - by the time these trays were emptied in NJ they had been contaminated, and if they were then filled with other mail, it too would be contaminated. Notice that the very next person infected with anthrax was a letter carrier there in New Jersey. It is normal to take mail out to the carrier apron in a flat tray! It takes but seconds to demonstrate how a flat tray works as an atomiser.
So, the issue now is why the Philadelphia BMC showed no contamination? Well, the answer is none of the anthrax got loose from the envelopes as they passed through Phily BMC - they were wrapped exceedingly well, and the polywrap the USPS is not only strong, it can create an airtight surface.
Is there another objection to my scenario which has the pieces mailed in Boca Raton, the only place yet to show contamination of any mail acceptance equipment, and yet be canceled in New Jersey?
Here's the story:
Atta shared an apartment in Hamburg with Jarrah and also with Atta's cousin Marwan al-Shehri. These three were apparently operational leaders of the 9/11 plot, as they are thought to have been at the controls of three of the planes.
Anyway, as we've read many times, Atta met twice in Prague with a senior, highly decorated Iraqi agent, Colonel Muhammed Khalil Ibrahim al-Ani, the first time in June, 2000, and again in the early part of April, 2001. But here's what's new to me: Jarrah and al-Shehri also met with an Iraqi agent or agents some time after Atta's second meeting, this time in the United Arab Emirates.
So we now have three leaders of the 9/11 attack (based on their being at the controls of three of the hijacked airliners) connected with Iraq, and and at least one of the three (Jarrah) specifically connected with anthrax (having accompanied al-Haznawi to the doctor). [I also think that Atta is connected to the anthrax mailings, although in a more circumstantial way, because of the apparent signature A-T-T-A in highlighted letters in two of the anthrax notes.]
There's one thing I don't understand. Why does the USPS shrink-wrap stacks of empty trays?
If, as in your theory, the anthrax letters were actucally mailed from Boca Raton, but were accidentially transported to New Jersey where they were cancelled and sent on for delivery, isn't it too much of a coincidence that the terrorist thought to write a New Jersey return address on the envelope?
I'm not sure I buy it.
I don't think this is just an enterprising reporter. This was leaked, although probably not from the FBI.
First of all, this isn't an isolated report bringing up Iraq. There was the New Yorker article and the reverberations from that. At the same time, John Doe #2 and the Iraqi connection to the Oklahoma City bombing are suddenly brought up again and considered credible by the media. And there's this new anthrax-9/11 connection, with the implicit link to Iraq. This is all against the backdrop of Vice-President Cheney drumming up support for an attack on Iraq, virtually in public.
Secondly, it's hard to see how reporter's legwork would yield this story. Consider: a memo was written at the Johns Hopkins bioterrorism group which was circulated among top government officials. And then the newspaper report came out.
The most likely explanation is that one of these "top government officials" decided that it was time to get this out there, that the public had to be prepared for war with Iraq, and that they had to start deflating the Rosenberg thing. [It's almost true that anything that's widely circulated among top government officials gets leaked. The reports may not be believed -- witness some of the leaks about Vince Foster -- but they'll be leaked. After all, if lots of people know something, anyone can leak with impunity, since the source can't be easily determined.]
Alternatively, maybe the government officials did nothing, and the people at Johns Hopkins were dismayed that the memo had apparently not been taken seriously. So possibly someone at Johns Hopkins leaked it, just to bring it out and force the government to pay attention to it.
In any case, waiting for the threat to become "manageable" is wishful thinking. (This seems to have been Clinton's policy.) The fact is that the longer we wait, the more unmanageable the threat becomes. I'm sure the decision has been made that we just have to take whatever Saddam Hussein throws at us, because if we wait 10 years, it will be much worse. If we do it now, we will win. although it may be painful. In 10 years, it will be much more painful, and we may not even be able to win by that time. In other words, it's a war that will have to be fought sooner or later, and it's greatly to our advantage to do it sooner.
"Warring" is too strong a word in present context, but, yes there are intra and inter agency turf battles, and battles between state and federal officials, and alliances etc. etc.
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